A One Mann’s Movies review of “The History of Sound” (From the 2025 London Film Festival). (2025, 3*, ’15’).
“The History of Sound” has “worthy” written all over it. Here’s another outing for those ‘Pedro-Pascal-alikes’ Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal, by which I mean, they seem to be all over our screens like a rash at the moment. Don’t these people have families to go home to?
Aside from a short prologue and epilogue, we are here pitched into a ten year period between 1917 and 1927 following the friendship (and ‘friendship with benefits’) between two men who meet at the New England Conservatory of Music.
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
Lionel (Paul Mescal) grows up on a small farmstead in Kentucky but with an unnatural ability at music. When old enough he gains a place at a Music Conservatory in Boston and meets David (Josh O’Connor) who he strikes up an immediately and intimate friendship with.
Certification:
UK: 15; US: R. (The film has not yet been rated by the BBFC but I would expect it to be a ’15’ for sexual scenes.)
Talent:
Starring: Paul Mescal, Josh O’Connor, Raphael Sbarge, Molly Price, Leo Cocovinis, Briana Middleton, Alessandro Bedetti, Emma Canning, Chris Cooper.
Directed by: Oliver Hermanus.
Written by: Ben Shattuck.
Running Time: 2h 8m.
Summary:
Positives:
- Mescal and O’Connor are as good together as you would expect them to be.
- The film is beautifully shot.
- If you are into folk music, the soundtrack will probably delight you.
- After a dull 2nd reel, there are more twists and turns to be found in the finale.
Negatives:
- It moves at a slow pace, particularly in the middle reel.
Full Review of “The History of Sound”:
A quality opening.
The film begins with Paul Mescal intoning:
“My father said it was a gift from God. That I could see music. And I could name the note my mother coughed every morning”.
What a beautiful way to convey a lot of information in a very short period of time. Within the first minute we understand that it’s 1910, Lionel is pitch perfect, lives in a tiny shack in the middle of Kentucky, lives in poverty with illness all around and has a hard-working but loving father who understands young Lionel’s (Leo Cocovinis) gift for music.
A meeting over a familiar tune.
We then skip forward seven years to the Conservatory in Boston, where Lionel has received a scholarship. David (Josh O’Connor) is tinkling on the piano a very familiar but localised Kentucky folk song that we’ve heard young Daniel already singing to his parents. Daniel (now Paul Mescal) joins him and the pair spend most of the night hammering out folk songs together. But with obvious chemistry between them, we all know where this is heading: they then spend the rest of the night with a different sort of hammering!
It turns out that Daniel is in the faculty of ‘Voice’ (hmm… Mescal proves to be a good singer, but is he really that good?) while David turns out to be a human jukebox able to mentally record and then play back, note perfect, any song even after just one hearing. In terms of David’s background, he is an orphan but spent several years in the UK living with his uncle, which is a neat way of explaining away O’Connor’s slightly trans-Atlantic accent!
A job in the wilds.
As the film develops, Daniel joins David in an expedition into the wilds of Maine to find and record onto wax cylinders all of the localised folk songs of New England before they are lost forever. This section of the film is quite engaging as Daniel and David meet early settlers whose lives are changing as America is developing. They face some hostility to their presence there, but David turns out to be the ultimate diplomat and sweet-talks the community to accept them and give up their tunes.
Those who appreciate folk music will probably love these scenes. A song by Thankful Mary Swain (Briana Middleton) is particularly moving.
One thing that is still striking in these scenes is how much Josh O’Connor, with his short haircut, still looks the spitting image of the Prince Charles at a similar age: it’s really quite extraordinary.
But their odyssey comes to an end when David is conscripted to head to Europe to fight in World War I. Lionel’s request to David is simple and concise: “Write. Send chocolate. Don’t die.”
Talented duo.
I don’t think the talented pair of Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor have ever appeared in a film together before, but they display the full range of their acting talents here. Both men have expressed their opinions about straight actors playing gay characters, with both having experience in that area: for example, Mescal in the peerless “All Of Us Strangers” and O’Connor in “God’s Own Country” and (arguably) “Challengers“. There is something solid and believable about two men who don’t outwardly exhibit any stereotypical gay ‘characteristics’ being in a relationship: this is probably more normally the case in real life.
A dull middle reel.
It’s the middle reel of this film that I had the most trouble with. We follow Lionel to work with a choir in Rome in 1923 where he dates a young Italian, Vincent (Alessandro Bedetti), and then to a job in Oxford in 1924, where he meets and dates a rich socialite, Clarissa Roux (Emma Canning). It’s all beautifully shot by cinematographer Alexander Dynan, the production design and costuming etc are all good. But the story is a bit dull and unengaging.
Things only pick up as we return to the US, following bad news about Daniel’s mother (that cough clearly finally got her!) This finale section has some surprising revelations and the film suddenly became interesting again. We then enter an epilogue scene set in Boston in the 1980’s where Lionel (Chris Cooper) reflects on the actions he’s taken during that time and those he never took
Summary Thoughts:
A well-made and well acted film, but it feels a bit dull in the middle reel while Mescal and O’Connor are apart.
The film is currently slated for a UK release on January 26th 2026.
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfEYUoefwb8.
Subscribe
Don’t forget, you can subscribe to One Mann’s Movies to receive future reviews by email right here. No salesman will call!
